Leading blockchain investment firm Animoca Brands plans to expand its Web3 ecosystem to include educational products, according to co-founder Yat Siu.
.@TechCrunch: "Animoca Brands plans to enter the education sector to bring students and teachers #LearnToEarn or #TeachToEarn rewards, said @ysiu".
Read the full story at: https://t.co/kTgwJBRxgE.#blockchain #Web3 #metaverse #gaming #PlayAndEarn https://t.co/1EetWnqz1K
— Animoca Brands (@animocabrands) May 13, 2022
Animoca Brands on education
Animoca Brands plans to add an education vertical to its NFTs and gaming business. The Hong Kong-based blockchain investment firm is one of those leading the digital property rights campaign through NFTs and games to build the open metaverse.
Animoca Brands co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu has stressed the importance of expanding the company’s ecosystem beyond NFTs and games in a bid to realize its goals.
In an exclusive interview with TechCrunch, Siu said, “We are really an operator, building games, products and metaverse projects focused on true digital property rights, which for us is NFTs.”
“We invest in everything and hope to be able to expand and grow the network effects of NFTs beyond games, because that’s the tip of the spear and what brings adoption now,” he added.
Animoca Brands has become a major investor in the Web3 space, which encompasses, among other segments, the metaverse, gaming and NFTs.
The company owns a majority stake in popular metaverse gaming platform The Sandbox and has partnered with a number of NFT and blockchain-focused projects in a bid to bring millions of people into the open metaverse.
In January, the popular Web3 VC raised $359 million in a funding round backed by some of the industry’s biggest players, including SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
Commenting on the fundraising, which also valued Animoca at about $5 billion in January, Siu said that in addition to developing products internally, the company was going to expand its team and invest in acquisitions and partnership deals, the goals of which align with Animoca Brands’ long-term vision.
Since then, it has expanded its gaming ecosystem, moving into eSports, arcade games, car racing and NFT avatars.
Animoca has also partnered with Asia-based entertainment companies such as Square Enix and Cube Entertainment to tap into the experiential product segment of the metaverse, which includes, among others, virtual events, concerts and festivals.
Now, Animoca is targeting the lucrative education sector, which several analysts say could become one of the main pillars of the metaverse market. Animoca does not intend to offer lessons on cryptocurrencies, but rather a more generalized tool product where users can learn about multiple topics.
